Secret sadness of £100million Lady de Rothschild

She has amassed a £100 million fortune in her own right and appears to lead a charmed life, but telecoms genius Lynn Forester is nevertheless racked with guilt because she wasn’t at home for her children when they were growing up.

The one-time corporate lawyer, who is married to financier Sir Evelyn de Rothschild — he became her third husband in 2000, with Prince Andrew and Lord Mandelson among the guests — reveals she was frequently torn between being a good mother and wanting to succeed at work.

The worst moment was when an armed burglar entered her New York apartment while her two small sons were there with a nanny, who had left the front door open.

Lynn Forester De Rothschild, married to Sir Evelyn de Rothschild, regrets not being around when her children were growing up

‘I was at work when I got the call,’ Lady de Rothschild, 58, tells me. ‘I raced home full of indescribable fear to find the man had ransacked the apartment and pushed the children into the bathroom.

‘I realised I could have lost the two most precious things in my life.’

Lynn, who now divides her time between de Rothschild’s National Trust property Ascott House, in Buckinghamshire, and homes in the U.S., adds: ‘I am still traumatised by that to this day. All I kept thinking was: “I wasn’t there.”’

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Now chief executive officer of her husband’s holding company E. L. Rothschild, Lynn has two sons, Jake, 24, and Ben, 26, from her second marriage, to American politician Andrew Stein.

Speaking at a cocktail party for the Women: Inspiration And Enterprise symposium at the Hospital Club in Covent Garden, Lady de Rothschild says: ‘It saddens me sometimes but the truth is I wasn’t always at home with the children when I needed to be.

‘I wasn’t always there for the homework or for the sports games because I was very driven and you can’t be in two places at once.’

New Jersey-born Lynn, who became rich as a pioneer of broadband technology before she was introduced to Sir Evelyn — more than 20 years her senior — admits her sons have now ‘forgiven me’.

She says: ‘Ben is coming over to see me soon in London on business to celebrate a late Mother’s Day with me. He has chided me in the past for things like being away in Washington on his 10th birthday.

‘But I also overheard him say as a teenager: “When I grow up, I want to be as successful as my mother.”’

Model Jacquetta's pet subject

Jacquetta Wheeler decided to follow in the footsteps of her photographer mother Tessa Codrington

A change of direction beckons for
supermodel Jacquetta Wheeler, who thinks it’s time to get behind the
camera instead of posing in front of it.

Jacquetta, daughter of wealthy spread-betting tycoon and UKIP bankroller
Stuart Wheeler, was spotted as a teenager during her school holidays
by Mario Testino, who booked her for Vogue.

She went on to become the
face of Gucci.

But now, at 31, in addition to modelling, she has decided to follow in
the footsteps of her mother, society snapper Tessa Codrington.

Her first commercial photographic effort can be seen in next month’s
Tatler magazine — an endearing shot of her own eight-week-old puppy,
Pip.

The result was so good that the picture fills almost an entire page.

Says Tessa: ‘Pip is a cross between a Jack Russell and a poodle and he
is very sweet.

But it isn’t nearly as easy photographing animals as you
might think. So she did a good job.’

Jacquetta, who is married to hedge fund manager Jamie Allsopp, has been
warned by her mother that photography is unlikely to make her rich.

‘I have told her that it is a hard path to plough and it’s difficult to
earn the same kind of money that comes with modelling,’ she says.

FILM STAR LIZ FULLER IS ONE OF THE GHOULS IN HOLLYWOOD HORROR

Liz Fuller almost unrecognisable as a ghost in horror flick Fason Nou

It is a far cry from the painted smiles
and swimsuit parades of the beauty pageant circuit, but former Miss
Great Britain Liz Fuller still had to spend a lot of time in make-up for
her big Hollywood break.

In her first leading role she is almost unrecognisable as a ghost in
horror flick Fason Nou, in which she haunts a house bought by a pair of
newlyweds.

Former TV presenter Liz, who moved to Los Angeles two years ago to
pursue an acting career, was thrilled when she was chosen for the part
by director Romane Simon, a grandson of Haiti’s former president.

Swansea-born Liz, who lives in Hollywood with her dog Amber, tells me:
‘I had to be in make-up four hours a day. For the last scene they made
me look as if I was rotting, so it was prosthetics, fake blood, scars —
the lot.’

There was a silver lining. ‘Even though I had this ugly face, I got to wear some amazing designer dresses,’ she says.

Music-loving ex Cabinet Minister Michael Portillo is quick to defend opera from charges of being elitist.

‘I’ve just seen West Side Story performed by inmates of Erlestoke Prison and it was brilliant,’ he says.

Speaking at the launch of Grange Park Opera at the home of industrialist Damon de Laszlo in Albany, Piccadilly, he adds: ‘Mind you I’m no stranger to prisons. Sometimes I think there’s more politicians in there than anyone else — having visited friends inside like Archer and Aitken.

'Actually, it’s a sore point with the expenses trials — I mean is there any point in jailing politicians?’

Shrugging off a night in hospital last week, the Queen hosted a cocktail party for military racing types at Windsor Castle to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Grand Military Gold Cup, which was run at Sandown Park on Friday.

She was not, however, at Sandown the following day to see her home-bred Close Touch, trained in Lambourn by Nicky Henderson, lead the field home in the EBF National Hunt novices final.

Along with £34,000 winnings, Her Majesty’s prize included a pair of brass underpants!

Gordon Brown’s former henchman Damian McBride has reignited hostilities with David Miliband, the man once tipped to be his boss’s successor.

McBride, who lost his job as Brown’s adviser when it emerged he was at the centre of a Downing Street plot to smear political opponents, boasts that the former Prime Minister had the ‘best intelligence operation of any recent PM’ when it came to seeing off would-be rivals.

‘With David Miliband’s various abortive coups, there was a certain crude art to inducing their failure,’ he says. ‘I was often criticised for over-reacting to some new Miliband manoeuvre, “ramping it up” as people would say.

‘But given David’s tendency to treat rebellion like a reluctant bather inching his way into the sea at Skegness, it made sense to push him right in at the outset, on the grounds that he’d run straight back to his towel and not try again for at least six months.’